Formation of the Modern State
The Ottoman Empire Sixteenth
to Eighteenth Centuries, Second Edition

Paper $19.95s    |    0-8156-3085-9    |   2005

With extensive new material, this classic booknow in a second editionchallenges the current paradigm of the societal decline as inadequate for understanding the Ottoman society and state during this period.

Reviews
"Now in an updated second edition with extensive new material, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries is a history classic. . . . Based strongly on primary sources and written with a conscious slant toward theorizing, [the book] challenges readers to rethink their most common assumptions about the Ottoman Empire and its lasting contribution to world history. In particular, Formation of the Modern State questions long-held status quo beliefs of the Ottoman Empire as a society in decay, pointing to evidence of modernity and vitality in the Empire and contrasting such evidence with corresponding European and Asian governments of the day. A scholarly reexamination, highly recommended for students of world history."
The Bookwatch

"Abou-el-Haj's study will stimulate general readers to rethink the Ottoman experience, to reexamine its main lines of development, to ponder the lessons of the Ottoman legacy for both the Middle East and southeast Europe. Specialists will want to reexamine their own assumptions. . . . Perhaps the greatest contribution of this study is to challenge readers to think of the Ottoman experience as 'normal,' as subject to the same pressures and tensions which have faced people in other times and places."
Digest of Middle East Studies

"This volume provides valuable, balanced coverage of recent research on Ottoman Jewish life, by seventeen leading U.S., Israeli, Turkish, and European scholars."
Religious Studies Review

"The book is a remarkable contribution to the research and knowledge on the Jews of the Ottoman Empire; it is a significant aide for University students and scholars. . . . It is hoped that Levy's call for further collaborate research will materialize in additional volumes on Ottoman Jewery. "
Digest of the Middle East

Description
Rifa'at 'Ali Abou-El-Haj reevaluates the established historical view of the Ottoman Empire as an eastern despotic nation-state in decline and instead analyzes it as a modern state comparable to contemporary states in Europe and Asia.

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Author
Rifa'at 'Ali Abou-El-Haj, professor at Binghamton University, New York, is author of The Rebellion of 1703 and the Structure of Ottoman Politics.

6 x 9, 172 pages, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index
Previously published by SUNY Press in 1991